Light Timer Project: Completion

The Light Timer Project is now complete and ready to install. Except it won’t be, at least not right now. I will probably keep it packed up until next year when we can incorporate it into some Christmas decorations.

This is not the way I pictured the final product but I’m still satisfied with it. It’s a tight fit inside of the case which is why it didn’t turn out as compact as I wanted it to.

The LCD does not have a cut out, it’s just being seen through the transparent cover. The buttons remain on the breadboard because it’s a mess inside the case so any wires that can escape are lucky.

Since I probably won’t be using it this year, I wrapped the string lights around the case expecting to throw it on a shelf and let it collect some dust. I realized that it made a really neat glowing effect off of the case. It makes for a really nice desk lamp at times when I don’t need my room completely lit up.So that’s the end of another project. If you want to see the construction log, just click the “Light Timer” category on the sidebar. Here are a few more things to wrap this one up.

Product Features

Displays current date and time.

Automatically turns on and off a set of lights during a certain period of time in the morning and evening.

Allows for user to adjust the time ranges in the morning and evening.

Allows for user to turn off schedule on the weekend.

Allows for user to manually turn on and off lights.

Displays a custom message on specific dates.

Fades in and out LCD backlight and controlled lights.

Times out menu after 10 seconds of inactivity.

Dims LCD backlight after 15 seconds of inactivity for power saving.

Code

The code is up for download as-is. It may become unavailable at any time. It is not meant to be copy and pasted into your project. Instead, it’s there to help you get an idea of what I did to accomplish certain tasks. Some ways I go about things may not be optimal but it worked for me. If you use any of the code and would like to give credit, please link back to this blog post. If you have any reasonable questions, leave a comment. Thanks.